Claudia Stauber provides a perfect metaphor of how she felt listening to Bernie Sanders today in Vermont, telling us how much he still fights for us against the 1% and the oligarchs.

“I felt like I used to be with the love of my life. Then he cheats. And not only does he cheat, but he moves in with the woman he cheats with. And then he tells me that he still loves me and he would do anything for me. That’s exactly how I just now felt being at that event where Bernie was talking the same stuff he said during his campaign and talking against the 1% and against the oligarchs while he is with them, while he is with the Democratic Party, which is comprised of oligarchs, while he stood and stands behind Hillary telling us how much he still fights for us.”

So what are we talking about today. So everybody has made a big deal about the DNC election and that they chose the corporatist and now they want the progressives to unify. No, how about you pick the progressive because you guys just lost.

In fact, impact the establishment Democrats are wiped out coast to coast. And you know that, you’ve heard me say a million times, they lost sixty-nine out of a hundred state houses; they lost the Congress; they lost the Senate; they lost to the most unpopular politician in the history of the world, Donald Trump, who only had a thirty-seven percent approval rating on the day he beat the Democrat.

One of the things that Barack Obama did was he instituted a rule: no corporate lobby money. Debbie Wasserman Schultz repealed it, and the Democrats are like, hey, since we got our ass handed to us by trying to be like just like Republicans by, you know, getting in bed with Wall Street and big business and the military-industrial complex and expanding two wars into seven, you know, we kind of turned into Republicans so maybe we should turn back into Democrats and let’s say we don’t take corporate money at the DNC.

Turns out DNC members voted down corporate money ban. That’s what they did. I think that was probably worse than choosing Tom Perez.

So the donors have a stranglehold on the Democratic Party and they’re not letting go. And they don’t give a shit. Remember the establishment Democrats would rather lose to a Republican than let a progressive win. I’m not making that up.

“Democratic National Committee members on Saturday [this is last Saturday] voted down a resolution that would have reinstated former President Barack Obama’s ban on corporate political action committee donations to the party. Resolution 33, introduced by DNC Vice Chair Christine Pelosi [she introduced it?— look at that ha] would also have forbidden ‘registered, federal corporate lobbyists’ from serving as ‘DNC chair-appointed, at-large members.'”

Sounds easy enough. Hey, if you want to put a pretty face on their “hey, we are really making changes”, that seems like we could go back to what Barack Obama did: that seems pretty easy. They can’t even do that! They can’t even do that. They won’t even go back. They’re wiped out. They just lost to Donny Tiny Hands and they can’t even go back to what Barack Obama did. That’s how corrupted they are. That’s how the gears are working. It’s because they’re completely beholden to their donors. That’s who voted for Tom Perez.

“Obama, as the party’s Presidential nominee in 2008, banned contributions from political action committees, as well as from lobbyists. Former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz quietly lifted the ban ahead of the 2016 election. Bob Mulholland, a DNC member from Chico, California, was one of the bill’s most vocal opponents and helped lead a successful effort to table the resolution for further review on Friday.”

So here’s a guy Bob Mulholland from Chico, he wants corporate lobbyists, bring the lobbyists, bring those things were supposed to be fighting, bring them in. Bring them inside the tent, make us just like the people were supposed to be opposing, and then be shocked when you lose.

“He argued that the ban would handicap Democrats at a time when they need all the resources they can muster.”

Hey guess what? The Democrats weren’t handicapped last time. And they’re wiped out. So maybe taking that corporate lobbyist money is the handicap. You ever think about that? Because it skews your whole fucking reason for being.

Hillary Clinton outspent Donny Tiny Hands 2 to 1. And she lost! Again this whole idea that the Democrats?—and we talked about it when I interviewed Thomas Frank, “Listen Liberal”?—is that the Democrats their whole reason for doing this corporate money shit, for Bill Clinton getting in bed with Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, and Big Pharma, the whole reason Chuck Schumer said screw the workers, the working-class, the white workers, we’re going to pick up Republicans in the suburb, that’s our strategy, the whole reason for doing that is you’re going to win.

The whole reason for getting in bed like the Republicans with big business and Wall Street is because you’re going to win. But you’re not winning. This fucking theory it’s been blown out of the water. Money doesn’t equal win.

The Democrats have been taking corporate money since 1992, and before, and they’re getting their ass handed to them. They lost to Donald Trump. So I can’t believe people still say this stuff. That’s crazy.

But it’s not crazy if you’re a lobbyist or you want to be a lobbyist or you work for a corporation or you want to take the corporation money or someday you want to work there or you want to work in the thinktank that takes the corporate money that wants to influence the DNC. It’s a one big capitalistic gangbang and they’re all taking part and that’s what this is about.

“Just a reminder that Republicans control all three branches of government right now?—all three branches.” That’s the guy who wants to keep taking corporate money. That’s his thing. But I just want to remind you, I just want to remind you that you’re able to take corporate money and you fucking lost. Okay? How stupid.

“‘We do not have a president the White House,’ Mulholland said. ‘I am not a member of Mother Theresa’s sisters organization; I am a member of the Democratic Party.'”
And you’re completely bought and sold by corporations, you dummy. And I can’t I can’t imagine why … oh.

Panel: I was at one of those corporate gangbangs once and everybody just wanted to fuck me up the ass.

Jimmy Dore: I’m glad we took time out for that joke.

Panel: Why is he dragging Mother Teresa into this? Yeah I was wondering with that analogy, too. Where is he going with that?

Jimmy Dore: He is trying to say like, you guys are too pure. That’s what that is. I don’t belong to a purity organization. I’m a politician trying to win. You lost! Your way of doing things lost.

Panel: He really should have thought that through. I’m not part of a group that tries to help people. I’m a Democrat. Oh, that’s branding: needs some work there.

Jimmy Dore: Well put, Ron. I’m not a purity organization that helps people. I’m a Democrat.

Panel: His words, his words.

Jimmy Dore: “New York DNC Member Stuart Appelbaum, a co-sponsor of the resolution, insisted that it was crucial for voters to believe the DNC is accountable to them, not corporate interests.”

It is crucial; they don’t think that.

“‘This resolution provides us an important opportunity to send a message to the people of this country as to our values,’ said Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. ‘It is not something new: we operated this way for seven years!’ Appelbaum added. referring to the Obama-era ban.” It’s not.

“Resolution 33 appears to be narrower than the ban on contributions from lobbyists and PACs imposed by Obama, explicitly banning donations only corporate PACs.”

So this rule that they’re proposing isn’t even as broad as the one Barack Obama had implemented. It’s narrower than that and they still voted it down! Mmmm. Because we’d rather lose to a Republican than win with the progressive. We would rather lose to a Republican than stop taking our Wall Street money. We’d rather lose to a Republican than stop taking the big Pharma money.

That’s what this is. This isn’t about winning. It’s about keeping the corporate cash flow going. It isn’t about winning because you’re losing doing that. And they know they’re losing and they’re ok with that. They’re more okay with losing than they are with winning to a progressive.

“Ellison told Huffington Post in January that he would reinstate Obama’s ban on lobbyist donations. He subsequently walked back the promise, vowing only to make sure the measure was second and debated by the DNC’s executive committee.”

That’s what he said. We played that video out. He said we’re going to have a vote. We’re Democrats. I’m not going to make a decision. We’re going to vote about it.

So if we vote to be sellouts and be corrupted by corporate money, I’m going to go along with it. And he is.

Panel: Yeah, the whole thing is super upsetting. It’s just ridiculous. It’s just like you keep saying, I mean, they aren’t Democrats. They are just Republicans with a different name.

Jimmy Dore: I agree.

Panel: But it’s so nice watching them all be besties. C’mon, that unity for all of us to learn from. I feel good.

Jimmy Dore: I do. I love it when Tom Perez and Keith Ellison go and do interviews together.

Panel: They need to get bracelets.

Jimmy Dore: “His chief opponent, former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, declined to say whether he supports the idea of such a ban.”

So there you go. You wonder what’s wrong with the Democrats?

Panel: He won’t even take a stand.

Jimmy Dore: He won’t even take a stand.

Panel: One way or the other. Just make a decision. That’s your job. Your job is to make a decision.

Jimmy Dore: Why do you think he won’t make a stand because his stand is obviously the wrong thing.

Panel: There is no transparency. That’s his answer.

Jimmy Dore: Yeah, that’s their answer, transparency. We’re going to do another story on that, about how they think they’re going to fix everything with transparency.

So this is still more of the problem. Hey Democrats, what did you learn? We learned that we need to keep taking corporate money and be just like the establishment that thing that everyone hates. That’s what we learned.

John F. O’Donnell: You know the Democratic Party is back, baby, back from the dead. They’re like Neo from the Matrix or Spock from Star Trek Three after Captain Kirk goes, “Khan”. They redeemed themselves by electing the progressive Berniecrat, Keith Ellison, as the head of the Democratic National Committee.

Donna Brazile: It is my honor now to present the gavel of the next chair of the Democratic National Committee to Mr. Tom Perez. Mr. Perez, congratulations.

John F. O’Donnell: Tom Perez? But he was the labor secretary under Obama. He was pro TPP and all in for Hillary Clinton during the campaign. He’s not a progressive. There must be some sort of mistake here.

Zaid Jilani of the Intercept: Keith Ellison started out very strong in this race. He received endorsements not only from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren but also from Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, from a wide variety of labor unions. I mean, in a way, he really was the unity candidate in that he had brought together Sanders backers and Clinton backers.

John F. O’Donnell: Sounds good. Democratic Party clicking on all cylinders. So what happened?

Glenn Greenwald: …As Ellison’s momentum built, the Obama White House worked to recruit Perez to run against Ellison. They succeeded…Why did the White House work to recruit someone to sink Ellison? … What’s the rationale? None has ever been provided.

John F. O’Donnell: None has ever been provided. Touche quote reveal, I’ll see your lack of an explanation and raise you this:

Clio Change of the New Republic: There is one real difference between the two: Ellison has captured the support of the left wing … It appears that the underlying reason some Democrats prefer Perez over Ellison has nothing to do with ideology, but rather his loyalty to the Obama wing. As the head of the DNC, Perez would allow that wing to retain more control….

John F. O’Donnell: So you’re telling me the establishment Democrats that I’m trying real hard to get behind here sold out the progressives again? They’re the worst! They’re like Hans Gruber from Die Hard or Nurse Ratchet from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Glenn Greenwald: There’s an uglier and tawdrier aspect to this. Just over two weeks after Ellison announced, the largest single funder of both the Democratic Party and the Clinton machine–the Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban–launched an incredibly toxic attack on Ellison, designed to signal his veto. ‘He is clearly an anti-Semite and anti-Israel individual,” pronounced Saban about the African-American Muslim congressman.’
John F. O’Donnell: Seriously? They pulled the anti-Semite card? What are they trying to say, he’s like that character from Inglorious Bastards, what was his name? Oh, Hitler! Yes, Ellison is the first Muslim American ever elected to the US Congress, which should be embraced. And by all accounts he’s moderate on Israel-Palestine. This is a total hit job. I’m starting to hate the corporate Democrats again!

Clio Change: This reluctance to cede control comes despite the fact that Democrats have lost over 1,000 state legislature seats since 2009. There is no case for Perez that cannot be made for Ellison, while Ellison is able to energize progressives in ways that Perez cannot.

John F. O’Donnell: Why corporate Democrats? Stop denying power to the progressive left. You know it’s a losing move. Your party has imploded and all you care about are your corporate donors at the expense of even winning elections let alone the well-being of the American people.

You’re like the Bad News Bears. Wait, scratch that. You’re like the remake of the Bad News Bears. No one is even buying tickets to your show. They all went home.

Your concern for the working people of this country has all been a con.

Bernie is funded by a man who goes by the name of George Soros. No conspiracy here its just hypocritical to take donations from a man who is part of the tip top 1%. And now it has come to our knowledge that he will vote for Hilary Clinton, someone he supposedly fundamentally disagrees with.

NDAA: Bernie Sanders: YES, Appropriates $80.71 billion for overseas contingency operations for fiscal year 2014 (Secs. 4102, 4202, 4302, 4402 & 4502). As well as removing due process giving the government total control over who gets due process & who doesn’t. It permits the military to detain individuals indefinitely without trial. Bernie sanders voted yes on this, not to mention the increase in defense spending?Source: https://votesmart.org/bill/votes/46311

Cyber Security Act: Bernie Sanders: YES, this bill is very simple to understand, tt literally destroys net neutrality. Generally speaking, net neutrality means that an Internet service provider such as cable or phone company treats all content equally. For example, it doesn’t offer faster transmissions for Netflix videos than it does for those from Amazon Prime. Bernie sanders voted yes to passing this bill…. Had that been passed internet would have been utterly destroyed as we know it.Source: https://votesmart.org/bill/votes/41957S

Amdt 2372: Bernie Sanders:NO, This bill is simple to understand why it is needed. It Prohibits the EPA from spying on farmers. And it adds better regulation to school meal programs & provides better healthier food for the kids. It also provides better regulation on what chemicals are put in our food. Bernie sanders voted no on this decent bill. Source: https://votesmart.org/bill/votes/40805

USA FREEDOM Act: Bernie Sanders: YES, this bill is also very simple to understand, it extends the patriot act (implemented by bush), The patriot act is a bill that expands federal law enforcement power. It erodes our freedoms by, allowing the government to watch & monitor our phone calls, emails, texts, etc. Basically eliminating the right to privacy in your own home. The fact this bill extends the patriot act is horrible & Bernie Sanders voted for it. Source: https://votesmart.org/bill/votes/50592S

Amdt 139: Bernie Sanders: NO, this bill again is simple to understand. This bill prevents the UNITED NATIONS from taking away our fire arms. It basically strips the UNITED NATIONS of any law enforcement in America period. Source: https://votesmart.org/bill/votes/43297S

Amdt 1491: Bernie Sanders: NO, again this bill is very simple to understand as well. It extends the STOCK Act to ensure that the reporting requirements set forth in the STOCK Act apply to the executive branch and independent agencies. It prevents companies from evading taxes. Source: https://votesmart.org/bill/votes/38053

That same year, he also voted in favor of S J Res 45 – Authorization for Use of US Armed Forces in Somalia, which authorized President Bill Clinton to use US troops in Somalia for the purpose of providing logistical support to the United Nations peacekeeping force. https://votesmart.org/bill/votes/8171#.VmSo979oF-A

The following year, Bernie voted in favor of HR 3107 – Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, which “imposes sanctions on persons exporting certain goods or technology that would enhance Iran’s ability to explore for, extract, refine, or transport by pipeline petroleum resources, and for other purposes.https://votesmart.org/bill/votes/8546#.VmSqVr9oF-A

In 1997, Bernie voted for HR 2159 – Foreign Operations FY98 Appropriations bill, which included: $3 billion for Israel, including $1.8 billion in military assistance and $1.2 billion in economic assistance; $2.12 billion for Egypt, including $1.3 billion in military assistance and $815 million in economic assistance; $770 million for former Soviet Republics; and $215 million for international narcotics control and law enforcement. (He also changed his mind on this now he speaks about drugs not being illegal) https://votesmart.org/bill/votes/8173#.VmSqrr9oF-A

In 1998, Bernie’s name was included as a YEA vote on HR 4655, the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998, which expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the aim of the United States to remove Saddam Hussein from power. President George W. Bush later used the Iraqi Liberation Act to provide justification for military action for the 2003 invasion. https://votesmart.org/bill/votes/8577#.VmSrar9oF-A

In 1999, Bernie voted for HR 2465, which provided $4 billion for military construction, and he voted for HR 3196, which provided: $2.16 billion for military and economic assistance to Israel; $760 million for military and economic assistance to Egypt; $535 million for Eastern European and the Baltic States, including $150 million for assistance to Kosovo; $300 million for military and economic assistance to Jordan; and $285 million for international narcotics control.Voted NO on restricting UN funding for population control policies.

(Sep 2008) Voted NO on protecting middle-income taxpayers from a national energy tax.

(Apr 2009) Voted NO on reducing Marriage Tax by $399B over 10 years.

(Mar 2001) Voted YES on Congressional pay raise.

(Jul 2009) Voted NO on requiring photo ID to vote in federal elections.

(Sep 2006)Bernie voted in favor of HR 3107 – Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, which “imposes sanctions on persons exporting certain goods or technology that would enhance Iran’s ability to explore for, extract, refine, or transport by pipeline petroleum resources, and for other purposes.

In 1997, Bernie voted for HR 2159 – Foreign Operations FY98 Appropriations bill, which included: $3 billion for Israel, including $1.8 billion in military assistance and $1.2 billion in economic assistance; $2.12 billion for Egypt, including $1.3 billion in military assistance and $815 million in economic assistance; $770 million for former Soviet Republics; and $215 million for international narcotics control and law enforcement.

He also voted for HR 4059 – Military Construction FY99 Appropriations bill, which provided $2.82 billion for general military construction.

In 1998, Bernie’s name was included as a YEA vote on HR 4655, the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998, which expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the aim of the United States to remove Saddam Hussein from power.President George W. Bush later used the Iraqi Liberation Act to provide justification for military action for the 2003 invasion.

In 1999, Bernie voted for HR 2465, which provided $4 billion for military construction, and he voted for HR 3196, which provided: $2.16 billion for military and economic assistance to Israel; $760 million for military and economic assistance to Egypt; $535 million for Eastern European and the Baltic States, including $150 million for assistance to Kosovo; $300 million for military and economic assistance to Jordan; and $285 million for international narcotics control.Writes Ron Jacobs of Counter Punch, 3/31/2003:”For those of us with a memory longer than the average US news reporter, we can remember Bernie’s staunch support for Clinton’s 100-day bombing of Yugoslavia and Kosovo in 1999. I served as a support person for a dozen or so Vermonters who sat-in in his Burlington office a couple weeks into that war. Not only did Sanders refuse to talk with us via telephone (unlike his Vermont counterparts in the Senate-Leahy and Jeffords), he had his staff call the local police to arrest those who refused to leave until Sanders spoke with them. The following week Sanders held a town hall meeting in Montpelier, VT., where he surrounded himself with sympathetic war supporters and one university professor who opposed the war and Bernie’s support for it. During the question and answer part of the meeting, Sanders yelled at two of the audience’s most vocal opponents to his position and told them to leave if they didn’t like what he had to say.

Following the 9/11 attacks, Bernie voted in favor of H J Res 64 – Authorization for Use of Military Force, which allowed President Bush to use the United States Armed Forces against anyone involved with 9/11 and any nation that harbors these individuals.

In 2002, Bernie voted against H J Res 114, which authorized President Bush to use military force against Iraq. However, he would continue to support bloated military defense bills that would ultimately be used to sustain the war he allegedly disagreed with.

In 2003, Bernie supported HR 5010, which provided $355.1 billion in appropriations for the Defense Department for fiscal year 2003 – an increase of $37.5 billion from 2002 – as well as: $71.6 billion for procurement of aircraft, missiles, weapons, combat vehicles and shipbuilding; $7.4 billion for ballistic missile defense; and $58.4 million for foreign aid, which includes humanitarian assistance, foreign disaster relief and de-mining programs.

He also voted in favor of HR 2800 – Foreign Operations Appropriations, FY 2004 bill, which granted $1.8 billion in military and economic assistance to Egypt and $2.2 billion for Israeli military assistance.

In 2004, Bernie supported HR 4613, which allocated $25 billion for emergency defense spending for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and $77.4 billion for the procurement of new weapons.

In 2006, Bernie voted for HR 5631, which provided $70 billion for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2007, he supported HR 1585 – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, which granted $187.14 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan operations.

In 2009, he voted in favor of HR 2647, which authorized $309 million for research and evaluation, procurement, or deployment of an alternative Missile Defense System in Europe, and also allowed the Secretary of Defense to increase the active-duty number for the US Army to a number greater than otherwise allowed by law up to the 2010 baseline plus 30,000 troops. During the same year, he called closing the torturous gulag at Guantanamo a “complicated issue” and ultimately rejected a proposal to shut it down.

In 2011, Bernie co-sponsored S. Res. 85, which urged the UN Security Council to take action to protect civilians in Libya from attack, including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Libyan territory.

In 2014, Bernie came out in favor of levying economic sanctions (an act of war) against Russia: “The entire world has got to stand up to Putin,” he said. “We’ve got to deal with sanctions.”That same year, Bernie didn’t object to having his name included – by unanimous consent – in S.498, which backed Israel’s brutal, summer-long military assault against Gaza.Most recently, he vowed to continue Obama’s murderous international drone war.

Bernie also supports funneling weapons into Iraq to fight ISIS as well as airstrikes, and he continues to spread the myth that Iran seeks to build nuclear weapons.

All of this information is publicly available and verifiable with a Google search. But hes for the people right? Bernie Sanders has a terrible voting record that tramples on the constitution and wastes billions of dollars. Sanders is proof that if you speak with a gravely, authoritative voice and tell people what they want to hear, you can gain national attention. Only once every several decades does someone come along who is so cunning, manipulative and masterful at combining nationalism, authoritarianism, propaganda and hatred into one slick campaign. Not sure what is more amazing, how brilliantly he is executing this strategy while working to appear folky or how many people are falling for it. It’s really stunning. Please Bernie is not the savior you are looking for. Read some books about high level manipulation techniques and carefully analyze the lack of substance in what he says.

Written by user rk3yb0arD – And no, just because I dislike Bernie and Hilary does not mean I support Trump in the slightest. Thank you very much.

Jimmy Dore: The intelligence agencies have been releasing the reports to convince us that we should be upset at Russia because they hacked our election. First of all, who gives a shit if they did? The United States tapped Angela Merkel’s phone, and she’s our ally. We do this shit all the time. Okay? And don’t think we’re not hacking Russia all the time also so it doesn’t bother me at all.

This is what James Clapper revealed. This is what intelligence agencies do, so ok? And what people are really upset about is that, oh my God, Russia got access to John Podesta’s emails and then they ran around spreading the truth.

So they put out this big report . This is the first one they put up. It’s the joint analysis report from the NCCIC and the FBI.

Now the first thing I want you to notice is that there’s a disclaimer that comes with their intelligence report. There’s a disclaimer. You want to know what that disclaimer says? That disclaimer says, “Disclaimer: This report is provided ‘as is’ for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.”

Stef Zamorano: I don’t know. I think I want some warranties when it comes from Homeland Security.

Dore: So what the old intelligence agencies are saying, hey even this shit were saying, even I’m not not even standing by it. We’re not even standing by it. They’re not even standing by it. And every stupid jagoff journalist and democratic hack in the country is screaming about this.

And then they released another one just on January 6th called the “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections.” The intelligence community assessment. Background to assessing Russian activities and intentions in recent US elections: the analytic process and cyber incident attribution. So that’s the one that came out on the sixth.

So let’s look into there. “Indeed, the report, like the Grizzly steppe effort, includes an unusual disclaimer disclaimer: This new one also came with the disclaimer that they put in the appendix. And the disclaimer they put in the appendix was. “Estimated Language” that “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact.”

Just quit reading right there. This is the lip. So I went to a CIA guy who writes for the American Conservative, Philip Giraldi, and he was an ex-CIA guy so do I believe him? You say I’m supposed to believe the CIA now right? Well he’s a CIA guy. I’m supposed to believe him, right? Well here’s what he says: “No smoking gun on Russia hack. Language used the intelligence community’s latest report.” Suggests. Yes it does suggest.

“So the latest attempt to nail perfidious Moscow is, to my mind, yet another miss-mash of soft facts combined with plenty of opinion and maybe even a bit of good old Cold War-style politics.” That’s quite a stew.

“A lot of sometimes wild speculation and judgments based on fragmentary information taken together are not a good basis for determining foreign policy.” It’s what got us into the Iraq war, killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, setting the Middle East on fire. It’s what got us into Libya. Got us into first Gulf War. Got us in Vietnam. Bullshit.

“A lot of sometimes wild speculation and judgments based on fragmentary information taken together are not a good basis for determining foreign policy, particularly if one is dealing with a powerful foreign state that is heavily armed with nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile delivery systems.”

So those reports that everyone’s screaming about how great they were, they are bullshit. They come with disclaimers that the people putting them out are saying, hey, we are not vouching for this. We’re not going to vouch for our own report, okay? Just so you know.

But I’m going to give it to all the knuckleheads at CNN and MSNBC and they’re going to go with it. They’re not. And the New York Times, and John Harwood, and Kurt Eichenfuck: all the morons.

I’m here with the miserable liberal Stef Zamorano, and we have to talk about this again. We have to keep talking about it because I thought that after the election that the Democrats will get their head out of their ass and start being reality-based again. And I was wrong and they’re going crazy insane.

They’re talking about Russia again, like again like it’s 1980. We used to make fun. I don’t know if you remember in 2012, the Democrats made fun of the Republicans and Mitt Romney because their foreign policy views of Russia were stuck in the eighties.

And the Democrats are immediately showing their hand at being just as craven and politically opportunistic and stupid though politically also. This doesn’t help them. So we have to keep talking about this because it seems half the Democratic Party has lost their minds. I’m talking about the people who backed Hillary in the primary. I’m talking about everybody at MSNBC. I’m talking about everybody at CNN. People have gone nuts.

So we have to talk about what happened and what really happened. So they’re still writing these articles. Politico says Obama says the Democrats lost by not showing up. We already talked about him wagging his finger at the electorate.

But here’s Shaun King from The Daily News. Now he writes a lot of great articles. He is good. I like his stuff. And he wrote this and this article is pretty a comprehensive. He says, the headline is, “Obama and the Clintons still have no earthly idea why the Democratic Party lost the Presidential election.”

And so not to beat a dead horse but it is very instructive to see how what’s wrong with the leadership at the Democratic Party. We all know the big problem is that they became Republicans in the nineties under Bill Clinton and got in bed with the people that they used to oppose, meaning Wall Street and big oil.

So he’s talking about the statements that the President has made and other leading Democrats have made. “The statements, if anything, reveals what happens when politicians are isolated from the American public for so long.” And Barack Obama has, holy shit. “While some nuggets of truth could be found there, by and large, they all severely miss the mark on how and why Hillary Clinton lost. Instead of looking internally at mistakes they made, they continue to look outward, casting blame on anybody and everybody but themselves.”

“The FBI investigation into the Clinton email mess was admittedly a bit of a public fiasco, but Hillary has openly admitted that she mismanaged the safety and security of her emails. In spite of it all, for months on end, Clinton denied violating any policies or laws when the investigation revealed that she actually violated them repeatedly. She has to own she has to own her primary role in that debacle. Secondly, this is Obama’s FBI.”

Yeah, they keep blaming Comey. Obama appointed the guy. Keep reporting Republicans. Keep reporting Republicans, you fucking idiots. How did that work out?

“Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate”?—this is where Shaun King really gets into it?—”Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate to run against Donald Trump. Of course the Obama and Clinton families will never say this, but she was. I honestly believe that she may have been the only leading Democrat that Donald Trump could’ve beaten.” She was. Anyone else would’ve beaten Donald Trump.

Again people weren’t necessarily voting for Donald Trump. They were voting out of desperation and against the establishment.

“Next to him, she was among the least popular politicians to ever run for President.” Now that’s a fact. The second most unpopular politician in the history of Presidential politics Hillary Clinton. That’s a fact. But I bet it’s everything else. It’s Jill Stein. It’s Bernie bros. It’s the Russians. It’s Comey. It’s sexism, right? It’s sexism.

“Trump is a rich, unethical liar with major character problems. To beat him, you run the opposite of that. Clinton, true or not, was not seen as the opposite but the Democratic equivalent.” That is true.

“Secondly, the Democratic Party needed to be the party of progressive populism to beat the rise of Trump’s phony conservative populism, but they chose candidates and strategies that simply could not do this.”

They thought they would run against Jeb Bush, and they didn’t understand that they were running against a populist. And they got all populisted. Remember Trump was to the left of Hillary on banking regulations: he’s for reinstating Glass-Steagall. He was the left of them on TPP. So he’s to the left of her on trade, to the left of her on banking, which means he’s to the left her on jobs.

“Whereas Trump tapped into the anger and frustration of his voter base, the Democratic Party failed to do the same thing on issues that had widespread grassroots support from coast to coast.” Yes, the Democrats failed to tap into the anger and frustration of their voter base on issues that had widespread grassroots support from coast-to-coast.

“The Black Lives Matter Movement never really believed Clinton cared. She all but ignored the Dakota Access Pipeline in spite of the fact that millions of people were outraged about it. While workers and unions and everyday people had joined the fight for $15 minimum wage battle, Clinton and her team waffled on it every chance they got. Documents revealed that she supported fracking.

Terry McAuliffe, who by all accounts is among the closest confidantes of the Clinton family, openly said she would flip on TPP once elected. Instead of being anti-war, she was seen as a hawk”.

Again they’re describing a Republican. She’s pro TPP; she’s a war hawk; she’s in bed with Wall Street and fossil fuel companies. What makes her a Democrat? She won’t even lead on the fight for $15. She won’t even join the fight for $15.

“In other words, while progressives were fighting against police brutality, against the Dakota Access Pipeline, against TPP, against fracking and for a $15 minimum wage, Clinton was consistently on the wrong side of each of those issues.” Yeah, ah, Russia Comey.

“Clinton campaign lost because they ran a bad campaign for the time that we actually live in. The Democratic Party put out the wrong candidate, but even with her, they could have and should’ve still won the election, but they repeatedly ignored and dismissed progressive people and causes that could’ve tipped it in her favor.” No doubt. She would not even mention DAPL, she would not even put a progressive as her Vice President. Barack Obama was nominating a practically corporate Republican to the Supreme Court at the same time he was pushing TPP. What’s the point of the Democratic Party?

“As nice as Tim Kaine is, they chose a Vice President who was safe, but did nothing to move the needle even marginally. Even now, as a Democratic establishment seems hell-bent on not choosing Keith Ellison as the leader of the DNC in spite of widespread progressive support for him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

This is the natural progression, this is the natural endgame of the Bill Clinton Democratic Party when he decided to change the Democratic Party from a party of workers and blue-collar people to a party of Silicon Valley and Wall Street. And Democrats have to acknowledge that. And if they don’t, they ain’t going nowhere.

That’s what happened to your party. Why is it so fucked up? Why did you nominate such a colossally flawed, the biggest flawed candidate in the history of the Democratic Party? Why did you guys nominate her? Because the machine is broken inside the Democratic Party, the way everything works, was broken by Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. They turned the Democrats into Republicans, which is why they sound like fucking lunatics now. They’re even red-baiting non-stop. For Christ’s sake, get a hold of yourselves.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have come forward to say they want Keith Ellison to lead the party, but the party stalls and stalls and stalls, and seems determined to do anything other than pick the progressive choice. If the Democratic Party is going to have any success moving forward, it must lean into progressive populism and not away from it. So far, I don’t see this happening and the Obamas and Clintons don’t seem to be taking us there.”

So way to go, Shaun King. He nails it again and again. The people who supported Hillary and the primary are still doubling down on their on purpose stupidity and ignorance. I don’t know what it was. You raised wrong, or if you’re all adult children of alcoholics, or what the fuck your problem is, you can’t even admit a basic truth. You guys are as bad as George Bush supporters, and that’s not hyperbole.

That’s the problem with why people hated the George Bush administration because they lied and gas lighted and wouldn’t admit the fucking truth everyone can see on their TV. And now the people who supported Hillary in the primary are exactly on purpose as ignorant as they are. And that’s why I want to get out of the Democratic Party. I think we need a third party but we need a charismatic leader to start it, to get it really going.

I think I’m joining the Democratic Socialist Party. They’re really booming. By the way their numbers are really climbing. And I line up with them, and we need a charismatic leader to get it done.

I’m telling you, half the Democratic Party, I don’t think, they can be saved. The people who are backing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and who are still screaming about Russia and those people, they’re determined to make the Democrats losers. They’re just as dumb as the Republicans were.

At least the Republicans had the guts to do an autopsy. They didn’t follow it. At least they had the guts to do it. The Democrats even lack that.

See what donor money does? It infects their brains. And now they are worthless.

Those people who are now Democrats, the Josh Barros, we have to make it a party that those people are uncomfortable to be in. And if not, we got to start a third party. Who gives a fuck about the Democratic Party? Who cares? They screwed over Bernie. And now they gave us Trump.

What are you going to do? Turn around and support them again? And then they’re still turning their backs on the progressives; they are still shitting all over us. What is the fucking point of this? They’re determined to lose again and again and again because they’re clinging to bad ideas on purpose because it’s their money train.

But I know it’s easier for people who aren’t original thinkers to blame me, and blame Jill Stein, and blame Russia, instead of trying to actually blame the people who actually have the power to do something about it.

Hey guess what? I’ve said it before, I’m saying it again. We need to have activism, which is sprouting up spontaneously in response to the Trump Presidency. So the people on the Left, the corporatist Democrats, are coming together with the real progressives to oppose Donald Trump. Isn’t that nice?

What the Democratic Party needs to do is cleanse itself of those corporatists who became Republicans and are losers: guys like Chuck Schumer. Remember Chuck Schumer’s whole strategy for the general election?—Chuck Schumer is the leading Democrat in the Senate?—and he said don’t worry about blue-collar Democrats in Pennsylvania. For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in Pennsylvania, we’re going to gain two to three Republicans in the suburb. That’s what he said.

So they went after Republicans and they lost to Donnie Tiny Hands. They don’t even know why they’re Democrats anymore. How are you a Democrat if you don’t go after blue-collar voters but instead you go after Republican voters. You’re a fucking Republican. Chuck Schumer is a Republican.

Show me how he’s a Democrat. Somebody please in the comments show me how Chuck Schumer is a Democrat besides being pro-gay rights and pro-abortion because most Republicans are that now. Show me.

Guess what happened. Some people got together and they went and occupied Chuck Schumer’s office. Isn’t that fantastic? Want to see the video of it? Here it is. Look at this.

Young Democrats protested inside Senator Chuck Schumer’s office.

James Hayes, Organizer for AllofUs: “In place like Cleveland, and across northeast Ohio, there are many families who, for a variety of reasons, feel invisible to local, state and national party leadership. This is because rather than empower and listen to the concerns of working-class Americans, and the families that their party claims represent, this party [the Democratic Party] has become the party of Wall Street. We need leadership takes its cue from the American people?—not the corporate and financial establishment.”

17 protesters were arrested during the sit-in.

17 demonstrators were arrested on Monday while staging a sit-in against Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat from New York, at the incoming Senate minority leader’s office in Washington, DC, according to a new report. The arrested protesters were from a group of roughly 40 people urging Schumer to step aside and hand the party’s leadership to either Senator Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

That’s what they wanted. They wanted to hand the leadership of the Senate over to people who aren’t bought by corporations. The people didn’t just lose the goddamn election to Donald Trump. And your only idea is to get more money from the people you should be regulating. That’s Chuck Schumer.

“Our goal is to show the Democratic Party needs new leadership and they failed to protect us,” he added of All of Us 2016 group. They did. The Democratic Party failed to protect them. “We want Chuck Schumer to withdraw his name.” I’m with them.

Shahid said All of Us 2016 formed about a month before President-elect Donald Trump’s stunning White House win.

These are activists starting their own activist group and they’re going out and they’re occupying the Senate Minority Leader’s office. Fantastic. Fantastic. The group now plans on targeting Wall Street Democrats (way to go) he said, which it blames for the Republican’s win over Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. “A lot of us are willing to go to jail,” Shahid said, adding the group would target all Democratic senators “who don’t do anything they can to filibuster Trump’s legislation that promotes his hatred or his greed.”

That’s what I said. The Democrats can filibuster. They can filibuster as much as they can.

“We are here because so many of us are terrified and scared and pissed off, said Yong Jung Cho, a participant from Queens, New York. “Donald Trump is a threat to the American people,” she added, warning Monday’s protest was a “first warning” to other Democrats. We’re coming for you

So if the Democratic Party and Bernie Sanders?—even Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren?—think you can still stay in bed with Wall Street, or some of you can still be in bed or your leadership can be in bed with Wall Street, these people are here to let you know, fuck you. Get ready to lose to Trump again. Fuck you, we’re not doing this shit anymore.

Half the country is poor, you assholes. People are crushed by debt. You got a Democratic President outsourcing jobs, still deporting two million Hispanics, the shit Trump’s dreaming of doing, right now the fucking Democrats are doing it, and these people are saying, “enough.”

And what did the Democrats do? What did the Democrats do? BAM: Senate Democrats elect Chuck Schumer to be minority leader with the help of Bernie Sanders.

And you know what they did to Bernie Sanders? He’s the head of their outreach. So now Bernie Sanders has to go out and spread Chuck Schumer’s message to get voters to come on board. He’s the head of outreach. And Bernie Sanders is ok with it.

You’re going to lose again, Bernie. You lost with Hillary, and he did it on purpose, and you knew she was going to lose, and you backed her anyway. And what Bernie Sanders should have done, god damn it, you know it and I know it, is he should have taken Jill Stein’s offer and ran with the Green Party and then Hillary Clinton would have shit in her pants instead of what she did do was be arrogant because she had every motherfucking lefty saying that they were going to support her, like morons, instead of challenging her to make her a better fucking candidate to come together with the progressives and form a real coalition government.

Instead she picked Tim Kaine and those fucking idiot lefties, “I’ll support you even more now. I’m pretending this isn’t happening. I’m supporting you more. Ha-ha. This will be great, right? If he does shitty things and we say we support her, then she’ll win, right?

No, she wins if she’s a better candidate, you fucking knuckleheads. Get ready for eight more years of Trump. The Democratic Party is dead. They keep doing this. I’m not going to work to try to turn the Senate Democrats, of which Chuck Schumer is the leader, I’m not going to lift a goddamn finger to help them.

Do you recall any time Chuck Schumer led on anything? When did Chuck Schumer ever lead for anybody except himself and his donors? Ever? He’s the one who told people don’t worry about the blue-collar voters, we’re going to pick up Republicans in the suburb. That was his strategy: to go after Republicans. Chuck Schumer. And they just made him their leader in the Senate with Bernie’s support. Bernie, you just supported Hillary Clinton and she lost to Donald Trump. Why don’t you wake up?

Grow a spine. Bernie Sanders, when are you going to risk losing your friendship with the Democrats to help your country? When are you going to risk doing that? You had a stupid secret agreement not to attack Hillary Clinton, and you stayed by it, and then when the country needed you to do something with your movement, you told them to go work for the Machine. And now you’re telling them to back Chuck Schumer.

So this is the death rattle of the Democratic Party. If you don’t see it Bernie, if you don’t see it, Elizabeth Warren, if you don’t see it Keith Ellison, this is it. I’m not going to help try to turn the Senate Blue if it’s Chuck Schumer and the people on the Left who tried to help Hillary Clinton, if they still try to help you do that, they’re losers again. The people know. They went and occupied his office.

What do you think is going to happen? This is their big wake-up call. They got their big wake-up call, and this is what they did.

I think they need to do better and really hear the wake-up call because I think a lot of people, you know, yesterday we were talking about how so many folks in the corporate media are still pointing fingers everywhere except for themselves but I think a lot of people that you know held their nose and supported Hillary Clinton that were hesitant about it now they’re seeing ok it’s not working anymore. The system is over. It’s done. Now we need all new blood. We need all new ideas. This isn’t going to cut it. This is not going to cut it.

You know, I’d be satisfied with … I’m not even looking for new ideas. I’m just looking for the idea that …. The New Deal is not a new idea. It’s an old idea. And it worked really well.
What’s Barack Obama talking about? Hey, we need to go back to the New Deal. No, he
never even mentioned it. They never mention FDR.

I don’t think there’s any time to do a New Deal because they have to do more war. They got to do more war and get more money from George Soros and Wall Street. That’s why they got Chuck Schumer: he’s a great fundraiser.

By the way, that’s how you progress in politics. You raise funds. So whoever raises the most money gets attention from the party leadership because you’re bringing the money and they equate money with victory even though Hillary Clinton just raised a billion dollars and got her ass handed to her. So that’s what that’s all about.

Chuck Schumer raises money from Wall Street and then he gives money to his other colleagues in the Senate and then they vote for him because it’s all about fucking money. It’s got nothing to do with serving the people.

What did Chuck Schumer ever do to serve the people? Look at this party. This party are dinosaurs.

Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, these people are dinosaurs.

You know Jimmy, I can’t trust Elizabeth Warren.

I don’t trust Elizabeth Warren.

She was right out there stomping for Hillary Clinton and as far as we know, where does she stand on DAPL, where does she stand on fracking, where does she stand on the TPP?

Did you see that big speech Elizabeth Warren gave about DAPL? Me neither. I didn’t see that.

Is she also going to take another tough stance? She’s going to dress down another Wells Fargo CEO, something that costs her nothing to do.

Way to go Democrats. Get ready for eight years of Trump. This is the Democrats big idea.

TODD: I`m joined now by Kellyanne Conway, top transition adviser and, of
course, Donald Trump`s campaign manager during the campaign. Kellyanne,
welcome to the set.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRANSITION ADVISER, DONALD TRUMP: Yes, thank you.

TODD: It`s been a while. Let me go right there to Goldman Sachs. He
railed against Goldman Sachs. Three Goldman Sachs alum, fairly prominent
positions. How is this not hypocritical?

CONWAY: He rallied against their political influence. And he doesn`t like
that and he said that they don`t have influence over him, politically. And
they will not have influence over him politically in this White House.
They need to work with him to implement the president-elect`s vision for
our economy.

TODD: What would Kellyanne Conway say if a president Hillary Clinton
appointed three Goldman Sachs guys? Would you – would you be saying, oh,
they don`t have any influence over her?

CONWAY: You know, I don`t remember myself being incredibly critical of
President-elect Obama`s cabinet positions because – or cabinet selections.
Because every president has the right, in this peaceful transfer of power
in our great democracy, Chuck, to make his own decisions.

In the case here, though, the first criterion is that the person be
qualified and capable to do the job on day one. And to do the job within
the structure that the president-elect has set forward, he`s been very
straight forward about what his vision is for each of the cabinet
positions.

TODD: You know, let me take another look. Because this is not the first
Goldman alum to serve in this very post, OK, the chief economic adviser in
the White House. It is basically a – it is almost a Goldman seat. I
don`t to be that cliche, but I think almost every president has had a
Goldman alum serve there at one point.

Is there – was there – was the trashing of Goldman just simply campaign
rhetoric and, sort of, B.S.?

CONWAY: Now, remember, he`s talking about political influence. These are
cabinet positions. These are people that who going to serve –

TODD: They`re political appointments.

CONWAY: They`re making policy. They`re helping to make policy. They`re
helping to roll back really bad policy that we`ve had.

This president wants to create 25 million jobs over 10 years. This
president wants to unleash energy in a way – really have an energy
revolution like we`ve never seen. Invest in coal and shale as well not
just a silly, I`m for all about energy, as they all say, right, left and
center.

He needs people around him who believe in that and can help execute on
that. And you`re not going to find better people than those who have been
at the top of finance, the top of our markets, frankly, and understand how
the markets work.

In the case of Rover Ross, somebody who has taken distressed companies and
turned them around. Each of these men, also, Chuck, are proven job
creators. And that`s a centerpiece of Donald Trump`s administration. It`s
actually a centerpiece of President-elect Donald Trump`s tenure in that
look what he did with Carrier in Indianapolis.

TODD: Let me ask you about this, Rudy Giuliani. The withdrawal today, it
does seem as if it – he was, sort of, out of the mix. Were you – was
everybody just being polite by keeping his name in the mix until Rudy
Giuliani had – was able to withdraw on his own timetable?

CONWAY: Well, it`s a mutual decision by President-elect Trump and Mayor
Giuliani. It should be respected by everyone. They will be close friends.
Mayor Giuliani will continue to be an informal advisor to the president-
elect. And Mayor Giuliani was incredibly loyal to Donald Trump, especially
in his waning months of the campaign.

And, actually, he gave great advice. I grew very close to him in the
course of the campaign. But in addition to that, he is a very lucrative,
very successful, very in demand private sector business. And it`s
difficult for people to walk away from that often enough.

So, I think until the two of them had agreed to this mutually, it really
was up to them to (INAUDIBLE.)

[17:25:03] TODD: I find that an interesting phrase you used, mutual
decision.

CONWAY: (INAUDIBLE.)

TODD: Right. That Donald Trump wasn`t – he wasn`t sold on the idea of
Rudy Giuliani as secretary of state.

CONWAY: Oh, no, I mean that the president – no, I meant that, as the
President-elect Trump accepted Mayor Giuliani`s decision to withdraw his
name.

TODD: Yes.

CONWAY: And, obviously, the president-elect is considering a number of
people for that post that the actual scope has widened of late. You just
mentioned Rex Tillerson, the head of Exxon. A very intriguing pick to many
people. He`s already active in Russian, China, Yemen, and the developing
world across our globe. He has the kind of business experience that Donald
Trump values.

TODD: Right.

CONWAY: That`s your golden question.

TODD: What is the – what is the – what are among the criterias for state
because let me just take – let`s take Rex Tillerson and Mitt Romney. When
it comes to Putin, they totally have different takes on Putin. So,
obviously, you`re sending two different messages, depending on who you
pick. Is the Putin – is the candidate`s position on Putin part of the
criteria?

CONWAY: Well, the candidates being Tillerson and Romney?

TODD: Yes.

CONWAY: Well, I believe, Chuck, that everybody should recognize it is
President-elect Trump`s position on Putin that will dominate the secretary
of state role at foggy bottom and across the globe.

TODD: So, this is an implementer. Everyone needs to remember that this is
an implementer.

CONWAY: Well, of course, he`ll take the counsel of those around him and he
always does. We always feel welcome. He`s a master listener and learner,
Donald Trump. But he`s also a master communicator in connecting with
people.

And he is sending a message in tone and content to the world through the
secretary of state pick as to how or whom he believes will help implement
his vision, really what will become the Trump doctrine.

And he has been very clear about how he views Vladimir Putin, the
possibilities of coming together, say, to, perhaps, double down and try to
defeat, once and for all, radicals on the terrorism and try to get – to
get the ISIS to actually be the J.V. team that is no longer announcing it
was once said to be by President Obama.

And yet, we know that Vladimir Putin is – also does things that Donald
Trump doesn`t always agree with. I mean, that is going to come with the
territory. He talked to over 50 heads of states since he became the
president-elect. He and Vice President-elect Pence have.

And – but he`s receiving calls. He`s discussing issues with world
leaders, knowing that we still have another president and commander in
chief for the next six weeks or so.

But, at the same time, it doesn`t mean that he agrees with everything or
most things that these leaders are doing or saying.

TODD: You may know bones about Mitt Romney and his position. Is Mitt
Romney still a candidate?

CONWAY: He is. And I also may know bones about the fact that I will
support, completely and whole heartedly, whoever President-elect Trump
picks to serve in his cabinet, including secretary of state. He has my
complete loyalty.

All I was trying to do was give some voice, first privately and then, with
permission, publicly, to what I saw as just a breathtaking onslaught of
resistance to the idea.

And that came in a week when President-elect Trump told “The New York
Times” on the record, Chuck, that he was rethinking water boarding. That
he had conferred with his now defense department nominee, General Mattis,
that he would take a look at the Paris accords on climate change.

And that he wasn`t much interested in having it as a priority right now,
prosecuting Hillary Clinton. He`s focused on immigration. Health care is
what he said in that on-the-record briefing.

It doesn`t mean that it won`t happen. It doesn`t mean that some other
people are in charge of it. But in the week when he said those things, the
biggest news story for the grass roots was the prospect of secretary of
state, Mitt Romney.

TODD: You were trying to make sure he didn`t – he didn`t miss that.

CONWAY: Well, no, he didn`t miss it because it was said to him privately.
But also, what I think ultimately doesn`t matter. What Donald Trump, as
the president-elect and president of the United States, does is all that
matters.

But I appreciate the fact that he takes the counsel and the advice of many
different senior advisers. And, ultimately, we already – we always know
who`s in command and control of the decision. He is a master decision
maker. He is a brilliant – he`s a brilliant accomplished businessman
whose instincts and who`s role intelligence are really incredible.

TODD: I want to ask you about General Flynn and what`s happened in the
countries that surrounds his son. McCaffrey, the former general, NBC News
Military Analyst. He had some tough words for General Flynn to us earlier
this week. I want to play them for you and get you to react.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. BARRY MCCAFFREY, U.S. ARMY (RET): You know, I was very strong in my
endorsement of him when he was first announced in the NSC position. I said
he was correctly probably the best intelligence officer of his generation.

But I must admit, I`m now am extremely uneasy about some of these tweets
which don`t sound so much as if they are political skullduggery, but
instead border on being demented. I think it needs closer scrutiny.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: Those are tough words from somebody who`s not known as a partisan.

CONWAY: Very tough words.

And the first part which General McCaffrey said hasn`t changed. And that`s
that General Michael Flynn has served his country for 30 years including
five years in combat, many tours of duty, missed his older son`s wedding
and made it just in the nick of time for his second son`s wedding.

These are his sacrifices that people like General Flynn make. And he said
very clear what his top priorities are. He talked about security and peace.
He talked about government reform. And he will – of course he is another
one who will implement what President Donald Trump`s vision for the
national security post is.

But I think what General McCaffrey said about this man`s decades of service
should not be undercut by recent events. I think that would be very
unfortunate.

TODD: Why shouldn`t people have some questions about.

CONWAY: I didn`t say they shouldn`t.

TODD: . General Flynn`s judgment that he didn`t, you know, maybe it`s love
for his son that made him not have sort of overlooked or have not used
correct judgment here. Whatever it is, there`s clearly a question he used
wrong judgment here.

CONWAY: They apologized. His son has been removed from the transition team.
The fact is that I think everybody can relate to love for one`s son. But at
the same time we really need to look at his full record. What qualifies him
to be national security adviser and you find a very long list of items in
response to that question.

TODD: If he doesn`t have the respect of the military community though, can
he effectively do that?

CONWAY: You are presuming he doesn`t. He does.

TODD: There is a lot of questions. It is bubbling. It is not, you`re right,
not a lot of people going on the record. General McCaffrey is one of the
few. Would that be a concern to president-elect Trump?

CONWAY: I believe it is not a fact. And I think that people will come on TV
if they have something to say that is negative in that regard, but the
question is does he have the trust of the president-elect Donald Trump? The
question is does he have the trust and the backing of the military
community who are looking at it through a non-jaundiced eye? And so far,
the answer is yes.

TODD: Alright. There`s a lot more to get to, but I don`t have that time.

CONWAY: Okay.

TODD: We will have you here again.

CONWAY: Thank you.

TODD: Kellyanne Conway, thank you so much, nice to see you. Still ahead,
fake news equals big business in one small European town. NBC News went on
the ground in Macedonia to find out where supposed fake news starts. We got
some interesting details on that up ahead.

Jimmy Dore: You wonder why Hillary Clinton lost and they elected a clown who at least said things that were right? So remember this: Donald Tiny-Hands Trump out-lefted Hillary Clinton on trade because he was against the TPP; and he out-lefted her on banking regulations because he wants to reinstate Glass-Steagall: she doesn’t. He went to the left of Hillary Clinton and he won just like Barack Obama went to Hillary Clinton’s left in 2008 and won.

So get it out of your heads, Democrats, that you’re a viable party if you keep running corporate Democrats like this. Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, you guys are fucking losers. I ain’t going to vote for you. I ain’t going to work for you. I’m going to start another party if that’s what you think is going to lead this party and get the progressives back in power, you’re out of your mind.

You’re doubling down on a bad strategy just like all of the people, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and all the other people in the Democratic Party, who were doing an autopsy on what happened and their autopsies is, “we didn’t do nothing wrong; it’s just too many racists in America.”

I saw Al Jazeera do a thing like that today: “there’s too many racists; it had nothing to do with economics.” Have you seen that, Steve? They’re literally saying now it has nothing to do with economics because the people who voted for Trump come from counties that were doing better. Stick your head in the sand all you want. There’s got to be a reason for the Democrats to suppose to exist. And the reason the Democrats are supposed to exist is to be an opposition party to the Republicans.

If you’re in bed with the same people, taking money from the same people, you’re no longer an opposition party. There’s no reason for you to exist. And guess what? Don’t be surprised that people don’t vote for you.

They just lost 69 House seats under Nancy Pelosi. They just lost to Donald Tiny-Hands Trump under Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Yuck! So it’s up to the Democrats.

People are angry at me, people are still angry at me about this election. They’re still not angry at these motherfuckers. That is unbelievable. Go ahead, Steve.

Steve Oh: Yeah, so the lesson that you learn is that they lost because of sexism. [Snickering.] What’s their proposed solution? Well next time run a guy run. If they lost from racism, next time run a white guy.

Jimmy Dore: Oh, they ran a white one in this time.

Steve Oh: Yeah, so if the lesson is that, oh, you know we lost because, you know, we were too left, next time run a white guy farther to the right, but not quite as far as the Republican candidate.

Jimmy Dore: Just a little bit; be pro-abortion. That’s the difference: pro abortion.

Steve Oh: So the choice you’re giving the electorate is an extremely right wing guy and then the person who is slightly less right wing.

Jimmy Dore: Yes.

Steve Oh: So the right-wing voters vote for the more right-wing guy and the left wing voters like, fuck it, I’m not going to vote for either one of them.

Jimmy Dore: I don’t want to show up.

Steve Oh: And then you lose.

Jimmy Dore: And then you lose.

Steve Oh: And then you’re like, whoa, we should have gone a little bit more right, little more male, little bit more white.

Jimmy Dore: That was their solution. Their solution is to become more like Trump. Yeah, that is literally their solution. Well, I mean…

Steve Oh: If you misdiagnose the problem, and you learn all the wrong answers or learn all the wrong lessons, yes, so they’ll get worse.

Jimmy Dore: So this is very much watching Debbie Wasserman Schultz say, “hey, believe me, if I wanted to rig the election….” Well, you know who else said that? O. J. Simpson. Remember he wrote that book, “if I did it, this is how I would have did it.” That’s exactly like O. J. Simpson.

Steve Oh: Yeah, and you know, also blame the third party. The lesson there is to next time ruthlessly crush any third-party voices.

Jimmy Dore: Don’t let them participate.

Steve Oh: Destroy any ounce of dissent.

Jimmy Dore: Smear them. They already did that this time.

Steve Oh: And it’s so stupid because the math just doesn’t work, right? So Jill Stein got, what, one percent of the vote?

Jimmy Dore: Something. Even less, maybe.

Steve Oh: So let’s do one percent for easy math purposes. Well 50-percent of the people didn’t vote at all. So let’s say out of the fifty percent of the people, half of them were lazy losers who are never going to vote because they are bad people. Let’s just pretend, right. The other half would have voted under the right circumstances. Well, that’s still 25 times bigger than who actually voted for Jill. So you can’t blame the third party either.

But they are blaming third parties, they’re sexists, they’re racists, blah blah blah. No, you blame the person in the mirror.

Jimmy Dore: Blame the person in the mirror, which they’re not doing, the Democrats. It’s really disheartening. You know, I really thought that this would snap them out of it. I really really did. I thought it would snap them out of it and they would go…

Well they actually again are doing what they always do, the Democrats, is they speak the language of populism, right? So you hear….

Steve Oh: They don’t even do that anymore.

Jimmy Dore: Well, I just saw Howard Dean on Morning Joe Blow Job and he was talking about how it’s time to let the millennials take over,, time to step away, except he was there rooting on the re-election of Nancy Pelosi saying what a great leader she is. And he’s also running for the chair of the DNC. But at the same time is that we got to let go….

You guys are nuts. These guys are saying one thing and they’re doing the other, just like Barack Obama always says one thing and does the other. Hey, I’m going to put on that comfortable shoe if you guys go on strike and then he doesn’t do it. he doesn’t do it not even one bit.

And he promised hope and change and there was no change. He took Bush’s Defense Secretary, put him in his cabinet; he took Bush’s tax cuts, made them permanent; he took Bush’s foreign policy, he expanded the wars.

David Feldman: Welcome to the Radio Nader Hour. My name is David Feldman. Steve Skrovan is shopping for property in Canada this week, and we’re here with the man of the hour Ralph Nader. Hi Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Hello, what a program we have today, post election.

David Feldman: Yes. We’re going to devote the full hour to election analysis with two of the most astute political commentators on the scene today. And we’re going to do that in a round table format. Joining us is returning guest Bill Curry who writes for Salon. Mr. Curry was a White House counselor to President Clinton and a two time Democratic Nominee for Governor of Connecticut. He’s at work on a book on President Obama and the politics of populism, welcome back Bill Curry.

Bill Curry: Thank you.

David Feldman: We’re also joined today for the very first time by the National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation Magazine, John Nichols. Mr. Nichols is also a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times. He’s also the associate editor of The Capitol Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, John Nichols.

John Nichols: It’s an honor to be with all of you.

David Feldman: Ralph?

Ralph Nader: Thank you again Bill and John. I want to get started with a comment you made this morning, John Nichols, on Democracy Now! This is the second Presidential election in sixteen years where the Democrats won the national popular vote for President and lost the Electoral College. When do you think the Democrats are going to take a stand against the Electoral College and support the ongoing interstate compact that has been led by Steve Silberstein in San Francisco that has now enough states to 165 electoral votes on the way to 270?

John Nichols: I would hope that one of the play outs of this election cycle would be a rapid and impassioned embrace of that change. Look, there are many proposals for how to get rid of the Electoral College. We should have done it a century ago, long, long ago, longer. But now, we are faced with a fundamental reality that I don’t think has yet dawned on most Americans, most journalist who are looking at this race. We have a lousy election system in this country. We don’t count ballots well or quickly. and the weeks go on. As we count all the ballots, all the provisional ballots just slowly recounted and reconciled out, we’re going to find out that Hillary Clinton has won the popular vote by a wider margin I believe than any “loser” in a presidential race in American history. It could well get toward a million votes. And if that happens, we should really recognize that if we were just like most other countries in the world, Donald Trump wouldn’t be president.

Ralph Nader: Let’s get to this next point of accountability. In parliamentary countries, when the ruling party loses, the head of the party often resigns his or her seat, as David Cameron did after the Brexit vote. Bill Curry, let me put this question to you. Who should resign in the Congress, in the leadership in the Congress or in the Democratic Party apparatus after this colossal disaster to someone who had a high untrustworthy poll, very high in the 60s and sometimes like 60% Donald Trump. And who was a hypocrite against most of the accusations he made about others, he was the target of his own accusations. Nancy Pelosi, let’s start with her, four time loser.

Bill Curry: First of all, the entire geriatric leadership of the Democratic Party in the House should have gone a long time ago. And if there even a bit of either a spine or self-respect to the House Democrats, they’ll finally do it. The Republicans have turned over their entire leadership team I believe – their entire team – three times while these same Democrats have been in control. The average age of Republican leaders are almost twenty years younger than that of a Democratic leader. They’re all out of touch. The politics that most of them have embraced has been now thoroughly discredited, not only to the base, but to almost anyone who pauses to think about it. So they should all go. The whole crowd the Clintons accumulated – of the Terry McAuliffes and Rahm Emanuels and Debbie Wasserman Schultzes and Doug Band – all of these people have hardly been performing public service and/or service to their party. But let me just point out one other thing. These people all did the wrong thing and they continue to, but it’s not why Bernie lost in the primary. For sure, without unions representing more than 70% of all members, Hillary Clinton never would have come close enough in Iowa to have pretended to win it. She never would have won Illinois without ASFME. She never would have won Massachusetts without the teachers or Nevada without the culinary workers. Our own progressive base did more to consolidate her nomination than this decrepit, feeble party had the ability to do. The housecleaning here isn’t just among the most obvious targets. I think it extends a bit further. And if housecleaning can’t happen, then just think of it just movement building. We need to rebuild the progressive, independent and stronger progressive movement that is no longer colonized by the Democratic Party. When we do, both the parties and movement would be better off.

Ralph Nader: Okay. Before we get to that, I want to talk about what kind of community mobilization, hopefully on left/right issues of gravity, after the election is over, working on both Republican and Democrat members of the Congress. Before we talk about that, let me put forward this thesis. The victory of Donald Trump – unheralded by most polls and most pundits – was a revolt of white America, a cultural revolt, an economic revolt, and a racial revolt. What’s your reaction to that thesis, John Nichols?

John Nichols: I think it’s more than that. And I think that we have to very careful about being cavalier in how we describe what has happened. But, what you are talking about is a component of what has happened. Now, the way to understand the circumstance we are in is that we’re now forty years into deindustrialization. We’re thirty years into radical globalization or twenty years into a digital revolution that has changed virtually everything about how we communicate, how we interact with one another. We’re about ten years or less into an automation revolution that’s going to change everything about how we work. In this country, you had a substantial number of working class people, not just white folks, you also have African Americans, Latinos and others who at one time had some assurance, especially if they were in a union job in an industrial setting of reasonably good work. Work that would pay them a decent salary, benefits and some sort of hope for a retirement and maybe also would provide employment for their kids and grandkids. That’s being blown apart. Because Donald Trump’s appeal was so frequently racist, xenophobic, cruel, sexist – you just run down the list of terms – some working class communities said, “We’re not going to go near that. We’re not going to vote for that guy.” Some white working class communities, especially in more rural areas and smaller cities said – even though I think many of them may have had genuine objections to how Trump communicated – said “We’re going to vote for an oligarch. We’re going to vote for a billionaire populist, because we think that maybe that’s going to help us get through this jarring moment that we can’t wrap our heads around.” And so, I think we need to understand all the factors that underpinned what has happened. And we also have to understand coming out of what Bill just said. We have to understand, this campaign never addressed anything, if almost nothing, of what I was just talking about with deindustrialization, globalization, digital revolution, automation. This was a backward looking campaign that offered people no vision for where we’re headed. And that’s on the Democratic Party.

Ralph Nader: Well, some people think that Donald Trump – using his own inimitable language – hijacked the progressive view of politics, apart from his bigoted and racial and misogynistic remarks. I want to play his last national TV ad. Remember, he was outspent at least four to one on national TV. He had no celebrities going around for him as Hillary Clinton did. He had no ground game to get out the vote. He was actually opposed by most CEOs and most media editorial positions. And he still prevailed in the Electoral College. Now take away the section in his ad on immigration, and I want you to react to this two-minute ad that was his final message to America. And one of his memorable phrases was, “This is our last chance.” And of course you know how many people have thought they knew who “our” was and “this is ‘our’ last chance.” Jimmy let’s play this two minute ad.

Donald Trump: “Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American people. The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests, they partner with these people that don’t have your good in mind. The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration, and economic and foreign policies that have bled our country dry. The political establishment has brought about the destruction of our factories and our jobs as they flee to Mexico, China, and other countries all around the world. It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities. The only thing that can stop this corrupt machine is you. The only force strong enough to save our country is us. The only people brave enough to vote out this corrupt establishment is you, the American people. I am doing this for the people and for the movement. And we will take back this country for you. And we will make America great again. I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message.”

Ralph Nader: Okay John Nichols, Bill Curry, what’s your reaction to this? Did he hijack the progressive message? Why didn’t he have competition? And what do you think of the two minute finale that you just heard? Let’s start John Nichols.

John Nichols: Look, I heard that. And I heard actually the speeches in which he incorporated some of that language. This was a core theme. Of course, he hijacked language. I mean this is a guy talking about “our” movement. This is a guy talking about economic elites, about corporations. I mean, I know a guy on this call who ran for President once and talked about movements and economic elites and corporations, Ralph – and did so from a progressive populist position. Trump has clearly taken a great deal of the language. And it’s an interesting thing, too. He took something very much from the left, where he presented himself as part of the movement. He didn’t even say, “I’m your strong man, I’m your – you know – savior, I’m going to see you through this thing,” he said “our” movement. This is very smart language. His language is certainly informed by historic progressive messages and contemporary ideals, I think, in many cases. Until you ask the exact question, “How did the billionaire populist…” Right? That’s the phrase for this guy. “How did a billionaire populist, who is really more ‘billionaire’ than ‘populist’ and always will be abscond with so much of the language?” A: he’s not a politician. He assessed the circumstance, and he figured out what was needed, what would work, that was smart. He did that in the Republican primaries, and then he did it in the general election. But this is the heart of it. Democrats had a chance with Bernie Sanders to provide a deeper, clearer, much more effective articulation of these ideas, these concerns and a way out. They didn’t just reject Bernie Sanders, a lot of people in power in the Democratic Party, who said, “Oh no this guy, he would be a disaster. He would be, you know he would lose, you got to trust it to the tried and true people who’ve have been running this thing for a very long time.” If you read some of the e-mails that went back and forth between these top Democrats, they were pushing away, not just Bernie Sanders but Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio and anybody who came to them and said, “Look, this stuff is at the heart of what’s going on. We’ve got to embrace it. We’ve got to become, you know, better at talking about it.” So yes, Trump assessed the situation, figured out a language that was highly effective. It was a language Democrats could have embraced, could have made central to their campaign. They never comfortably did so, and they lost not just the presidency, but frankly because we’re evolving toward a parliamentary style system – not in reality but in the way that voting occurs – they also lost a lot of Senate races and House races, where people who were doing a better job of articulating that message were cut off, didn’t get to succeed because the Presidential candidate was so weak.

Ralph Nader: Bill, what’s your take on it? And bring in Bernie Sanders. What’s your take on this ad?

Bill Curry: First of all, I’d just make one small semantic quibble. And that is that Trump didn’t hijack the populism, the Democratic Party made a gift of it to him. And he simply accepted it. The second thing I would just say — and let me just sign on to everything that John has said – that that elite, as he alluded to, made a decision that in the midst of a global insurrection against political corruption and economic oligarchy that Hillary Clinton’s “pay to play” politics in global finance capitalism would somehow play better than Bernie Sanders Democratic Socialism. And every ideology thinks it’s scientific. And the hardest ideology to expose is centrist ideology, because they do the best job at pretending to be empirical. But the fact of the matter is, they ignored every poll they had, all the data they had, and even all the anecdotes they could possibly have accumulated in order to reach the conclusion that Hillary was a stronger candidate than Bernie. The Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the United States and maybe even the planet have all been changed in ways no rational person could welcome. And I remain certain that if anyone other than Clinton – and certainly if you accept for just one moment that when all the polls said the right things by such wide margins for so long they might be right – Bernie Sanders could have won this had he been the nominee, like Roosevelt took out Landon. And if she’d simply put him on the ticket, she probably could have brought Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And I see no reason to doubt the thesis. The Democratic Party – again as I said this morning, “Never underestimate the capacity of an entire social order to commit suicide.” And they did that. The last thing I want to add though, and just a sentence: and that is, I also strongly agree with what John said earlier. The worse mistake we could make isn’t – some Clinton people will blame the Bernie people. Somehow, I’m sure that will happen. I used to worry about it. But what I most worry about is that they’re going to blame the people. They’re going to blame the voters. They’re going to say that all the voters are just like Trump. As with all human change, the first road to growth starts with taking responsibility. The Democratic Party did this to itself. And while there are millions of voters who were no doubt racially motivated, there were millions of voters who’ve lost their pensions and the equity in their homes and their dreams of their children’s college education, who’ve become addicted and suicidal, whose mortality rates have diminished. And it’s been years since they heard anybody call their name. All that happened yesterday is that they got a chance – it was just one chance anybody had given them to say, “no.”

Ralph Nader: If you look at the map it’s amazing how the Democrat states are West Coast and East Coast above North Carolina. And in the middle country, everything in between, is very heavily Republican. It’s like they were ignored. They felt ignored. They were very resentful. They had very, very daily examples of that resentment. And here you go where the insurance company jacking up rates under Obamacare at the worst opportune moments. Let’s back up in terms of electoral reforms, do you think there should be universal voting, voting as a duty like in Australia and some other countries, together with a binding “none of the above” to deal with the civil liberties issue and instant run off voting. What do you think of those three, John Nichols?

John Nichols: Yes, yes, yes. Look, you pointed out that, when we look at that map, we have East Coast and West Coast states supporting Clinton, the Democrats. More of the center of the country, rejecting. At this point, we – because I think as you taught me, Ralph – must always look at the structural realities. The structural realities in America are that in a host of states since 2010, when Republican governors have come in, they’ve made it harder to vote with voter ID laws, with limits on early voting, with a host of interventions that, that just simply make it more difficult for working class people to cast a ballot. On the other hand, in Oregon they’re leading on some of the registration reforms you talk about. State of Maine looks like it’s headed toward an embrace of instant run-off voting. And we’ll see how the final results come there. We have communities across this country that have moved to reforms that you’re talking about. And they work. We’re not talking about some sort of fantasy here. We are talking about simple, political realities that are structural. And if they are implemented, they produce different results. One thing to remember about all this: our goal should be maximized turnout elections, high turnout elections in which great masses of people participate. In Iceland the other day, they had an election about a week ago where almost 80% of the people turned out. I don’t think we’ll get to 60% in America and potentially a good deal less than that. This is a big deal. Iceland, it looks like, may have a relatively conservative government. And yet their conservative government, because of that high turnout, will be environmentally sensitive, sensitive to women, supportive of the social welfare state, you know conservatism – so called conservatism in much of the rest of the world – is much more – not always – but often much more good management rather than some sort of alternative vision where you would really reject all these things because when you have high turnout, you can’t reject these basics. America is defined by our low turnout elections, by the difficulty of voting. And so Democrats, progressives, anybody who isn’t satisfied with Donald Trump should be immediately going to these structural responses and looking for ways to implement them at every level from the community to the state to ultimately the federal.

Ralph Nader: Bill, you’ve observed very closely Bernie Sanders’ movement. What do you think he should do right now, both in terms of mass rallies, perhaps before the end of the year? How does he bring his followers together, who are going in all directions despairing, some voted for Hillary, some voted for Trump, some stayed home, a few might have voted for the Greens? What would you recommend to Bernie Sanders? Because he has the only operating asset electorally left in the Democratic Party on the national scene.

Bill Curry: First of all, I would say that we woke up this morning with Bernie Sanders as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party in America. Now, that may not be true in a week or a month or a year, but it’s true this morning. The first question is the one you just posed. What will he do with that? Will he know what to do with it? There’s some things his people haven’t proven very good at so far, and that is knowing what to do organizationally. But to be fair, it’s a very complex question. The first thing he can do is make a decision to disempower himself in the following way: to find a way for the actual assets of this campaign to become the property of the people who built it. This is what a Democratic Socialist would want to do you, would think. It’s the opposite of what Obama did. Obama, you know, in 2008 built the largest grassroots, electoral political movement certainly in the nation’s history and then took it private and put it under the aegis of a couple of his corporate donors, quite literally, put them in charge of it. And they never had another meeting. And they just did what so much of the left has done which is, turn a grassroots movement into a Washington-based Pac with a grassroots mailing list. The challenge here is for Bernie and for the left to find out a way not to do that. Two of the glaring defects of left or shortcomings, I think, have been exposed in this campaign and recently. One is that – unlike progressive movements in other countries – we don’t have a public integrity movement that is strong. And we also don’t have a peace movement …

Ralph Nader: Bill, you’re talking about public corruption right, when you talk about public integrity?

Bill Curry: Uh huh.

Ralph Nader: Okay, you want to elaborate that?

Bill Curry: Yes, that’s right. We don’t have an anti-corruption movement in this country. Common Cause, I appreciate what they do. But there hasn’t been a strong – again we don’t have a strong independent progressive movement. And it would strengthen the Democrats, I’m almost sure, and the progressives for certain, if they became more independent and resume a kind of more arms length relationship with the Party. They have to do some building. The two areas that strike me as the areas in which we’re weakest are, one: public corruption; and two: peace. And we’ve had strong peace movements before. We don’t have one now. Other areas, we have a lot of other building to do. So it’s not just up to Bernie. That piece of it – it’s up to an awful lot of people. Define ways in which organizations as diverse as churches, non-profits and pacs can find a way to work together. And Bernie’s job is to go out there, I think, and continue to provide some spiritual leadership to this thing and to help frame the message, and to be very much a part of that. It’s not true that the country is just waiting for someone to run on exactly what progressives think. We have to do some retooling of our own. Our message isn’t quite ready, and we need to go through a policy process. I’ll just finish by saying, a mantra I’ve repeated in many articles and speeches over the last year: “policy precedes message.” First, you figure out what you believe, and then how to tell people about it. If you find the right concrete, compelling and specific idea, it will do your fundraising and your organizing for you. That’s how The (Nuclear) Freeze, that’s how your movement, that’s how every great progressive movement operated.

Ralph Nader: Bill, you know there is a sort of subliminal consensus on the militarization of foreign policy, interventionism, empire by both parties in this election, and they evidence that by hardly talking about it. And Bernie didn’t talk much about the militarization of foreign policy.

Bill Curry: Not his strong suit.

Ralph Nader: All empires devour themselves. And the diversion of massive portions of our public budget into the Pentagon budget, into the war making machine has bled dry the potential of renovating and refurbishing our massive public works that are crumbling all over the country, creating good paying jobs that can’t be exploited. What do you think should happen in terms of amplifying whatever movement Bernie had? By the way, for the first time, this progressive movement can raise good money. The same people that raised 235 million in small denominations for Bernie are still active. They’re ready to go. That means that there’s money for full time organizers in every Congressional district if Bernie is something other than a Lone Ranger.

John Nichols: Yeah, I think either of us would say similar things. But here is a way to back up and look at this. We know the military industrial complex about which Eisenhower warned is both a budgetary challenge, it’s also a structural challenge for our society. This is big deal stuff. But we also know that we have to figure out how to talk about all this. The answer to how we talk about this is to borrow a page from the past. When the nonpartisan leaders, the farmer laborites and the progressives of the Upper Midwest created independent third parties – all which by the way ultimately sort of evolved into the modern Democratic Party in those states at a time when those price are quite viable – they always put out these wonderful documents. I’ve got some of the historic ones. They’re full budgets. They would put out their whole budget and mass produce it and give it to activists across the state. They’d say, “Here’s how much we want to tax. Here is where we want to allocate the money. Here’s where we might open some things up for debate. But if we’re elected this is our budget, this is our plan and so we show you what we can do and how to do it.” If the Democratic Party was a progressive political party – or even progressive movements within it – were to simply do that on a regular basis, I think Americans would as justifiably be shocked by the disproportionality of our defense spending that by the corporate welfare, by all of the things that are run through a budget. This doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s that transparency, it’s that willingness to bring people into the process, that’s the only way to change it. You don’t change it by having some grand vision from above. You show people the reality and then you invite them to be a part of making that change.

Ralph Nader: Just to add to your point, John. Over 90% of the people want the Pentagon budget to be audited. Who wouldn’t? And the Pentagon budget is un-auditable. It’s violating Federal Law since 1992. The Congress knows that. It’s the only agency in government that does not provide audited material for the Government Accountability Office, the GAO arm of the US Congress. And there’s not one person working full time reflecting this massive left/right consensus that of course the bloated ways for redundant, corrupt contracting budget of the Pentagon should be audited. And that fits right in with the point you just made on the people’s budget being part of a grass root effort. Bill, you were going to say?

Bill Curry: I just wanted to say, but first of all that I – again I want to agree with John on that historical note, and there are thousand such examples – that the concreteness and specificity by their nature are radical, especially to now more than ever and they’re so important to any kind of successful movement building, public education. And it will almost always show that another really sort of key point which is that, you can either make the change or write the check. One of the reasons people end up liking so many Socialists who run for office is that they are also frugal and ethical, and that they demonstrate in their platforms that by embracing systemic reform, we save money in the end. And the government does become more accountable. That’s really the way to get to the kind of better-managed and more honest government people want. The transparency thing that you’ve talked about Ralph is so critical to this. One of the reasons they’re not going to get the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) is that they – unlike every European country in the European Trade Agreement – they refused to disclose the details to the public for years. And if they had, maybe they would have found out some of its gross defects. And maybe they would have been able to cobble together an agreement that in fact worked better for working people. But, you know, as it is that didn’t happen. It goes to the core of what we, of the pressure we bring on Trump. Trump did steal, more than anything, the public corruption agenda. And we have to hold his feet to the fire on it. Those are all important.

Ralph Nader: Okay, let me just get to third parties here. Before I want to provoke your imagination – we’re talking with John Nichols who writes for the Nation and the Capitol Times in Wisconsin. We’re talking with Bill Curry, who was the Councilor for President Clinton for a number of years, and who has written brilliant articles for Salon and now for The Daily Beast. Third Parties: here’s how they did yesterday. Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party, former Governor of New Mexico came in about 3%. You’ve got 4 million and 24,000 votes. He didn’t quite get to 5% for federal funding on the next round. Jill Stein, Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party, she got about 1%, 1.2 million votes. Now, third parties have had a glorious history in the United States, even though they’ve never won a national election. They put on the table, they put on the ballot first, the abolition of slavery, women’s right to vote, the protection of farmers by regulating railroads and banks in the late 19th Century, the organization of labor, the unions, fair labor standards in the 20th Century. Third parties first put on the ballot progressive taxation, a number of electoral reforms, Social Security, Medicare, consumer protection, unemployment compensation and on and on. They do provide a valuable push on the two party tyranny, on the two party duopoly. Now at what point would you, John Nichols or Bill Curry, reach a breaking point with the major party of your choice, which I assume is the Democratic Party? At what point in any quadrennial election do you say, “Now is the time?” Because for people who keep telling me, “Now is not the time to vote for a third party. We got a terrible Republican. And even though the Democrats are not good, they’re not as bad as a Republican.” Please can you tell us, who have worked in the third party vineyards, when is the time? And make any other brief comments on third parties.

John Nichols: I’ll just begin, because Bill then can bring the brilliance at the next stage. Let me offer this insight. We just had a classic example of the importance of third parties. The danger as regards to third parties is to always assume that the only measure of their success – and I know you don’t Ralph and I don’t expect you do either Bill – that the measure of their success is in votes. That it is electoral. It can also be in framing the debate. And what Jill Stein did at Standing Rock, where she went and stood in solidarity with Native Americans seeking to halt a pipeline was incredibly critical. When she went out there – I don’t know if everybody remembers this – she went there before most of the other folks, who have since been arrested, who brought more and more attention to this. And here she was, using her status as a third party candidate, maybe hoping, yes also to get attention to her candidacy, but using her status as a third party candidate, engaging in civil disobedience, participating in those protests. That goes back to Norman Thomas. That goes back to Eugene Victor Debs. This is a huge part of what a third party is about, what it can do. And we saw a good example of it. So we should celebrate that and embrace it. We also have to – as you’ve said so many times Ralph – break the corruption of the so-called “bipartisan” Commission on Debates. That’s the answer to your core question. When do we break? Some of us have already broken. And our break is to say that we have to make it possible for third parties to be heard at the start of the process in those first debates, because once you do that, then you get the deeper answer to your question. Because the deeper answer to your question from tens of millions of Americans is, that they will make the break when the third party is viable, when they see the possibility that their vote might not win but at least it can move the ball. And getting into the debates is absolutely critical to that, because suddenly you can have a candidate, who is very much on the margins, brought into the center of the discourse. I really strongly emphasize this: that we should all make the first break and be radically, passionately committed to multi-party debates. And I’ll tell you something else. A multi-party debate would have been bad for Donald Trump. Bottom line is, he was helped by one-on-one debates in which it was just him going back and forth. And everybody thought – a lot of people thought – Hillary Clinton won the debates. And I happen to be one of them. But the fact of the matter is, he stood alone on the stage with her as the only alternative. And so, people – Democrats – ought to really think about that.

Ralph Nader: Bill, in your most recent article, you say, “The most consequential election of our lives may end in a photo finish. Many progressives who back Bernie Sanders support Jill Stein or plan on staying home, I write to implore them to vote for Hillary Clinton, for our country and for our planet’s sake. And because for progressives, it’s a smart move.” Now, what do you think about the third party – the exclusionary debates, the harassment of third parties, ballot access obstacles – do they have a future in America?

Bill Curry: Okay first of all, on all the questions of ballot access and harassment and debate access, I agree with you. And I have long said – what John just said about this year. I believe that if Jill Stein had been allowed to participate in the debates this year, Hillary Clinton would have won. I believe – and I have said for sixteen years now – that if they’d let you into the debates in 2000, Gore would have won. Because you would have done a much better – I feel more certain of you than I do with Jill Stein – but you would have framed the issues that Gore didn’t. And it would have actually helped him. But they were too afraid. I’m in the group though – and you and I have had this argument between us for decades now – I think it’s the single thing that we most consistently disagree on – close to the only one – and that is this: that I still believe that we are in much more in need of a second party than a third party. And I’ve been on this hobbyhorse for thirty years now. That the Green Party – I disagree with John on this – I don’t think the Green Party made any difference at all in this election, except as a kind of a distraction. And progressives should ponder hard the fact that millennials overwhelmingly chose Libertarian over Green. And that ought to be part of our policy discussion. And I would also say that even though I lost the job I worked hardest for, the governorship of Connecticut, because a third party candidate bled a few votes – and it would have been the most progressive administration in the modern history of the country on a state level – I don’t denigrate third party movements, because I recognize their contribution. But I also recognize that it’s the movements that produce the ideas that you didn’t have to be in an election and then it’s harder now. And this is something you and I talked about a lot. It’s so much harder to educate now in an election. The debate doesn’t begin until the day after the election. It’s what’s insidiously wrong with where we are now. And so, I really wish that the left would just finally take a hard look at what the right has done. The Tea Party is six years old, it now runs the House, the Senate, the White House, the Supreme Court and is the most important influence in State Houses across the country. And it represents a tiny minority of American opinion. Progressives are closely aligned not only with our best values but the majority opinions of the broad middle class. And we’ve never been worse off. I would like us to just finally take that lesson to heart and do – not what the Greens do – but with the Working Families Party model has – at least banner – is moving toward. You primary the worst ones. You endorse the best ones. And you run independents where it makes tactical sense for your movement and for your cause.

Ralph Nader: All right.

Bill Curry: Protest politics isn’t enough. We have to learn to vie for power. That’s what I think.

Ralph Nader: Okay, now I want to move you to an area where you have to imagine in order to envision real possibilities. An enlightened mega billionaire comes to you, John Nichols, and to Bill Curry – and I want to see what your respective answers are. The billionaire says, “I’m going to give you $5 billion, and I want a plan what you would do with it to turn politics around in our country, from the bottom up and from the top down in a reasonable period of time, say thirty-six months crossing an election, or 48 months.” John Nichols, what would you do with that $5 billion, how would you use it?

John Nichols: $5 billion?

Ralph Nader: 5 billion with a B.

John Nichols: Okay. I would use the existing and rapidly developing digital platforms in which to create a national movement for a simple tax check off or tax benefit that would allow citizens to give $200 a year, tax free. They would get the money back to pay for nonprofit, independent media. I would use the 5 billion not to create independent media, but to create a mechanism by which citizens could support independent media that they approve of. It could be on the left, it can be on the right but the bottom line is, it has to be journalistic. It has to actually have at least some model where it goes out and reports on the news and gets information into this process. I’ll tell you what, give you an example of what that could do. If you had a million people who had their $200 and they all gave it to Amy Goodman, Ralph, you and I last night might well have been talking to the great majority of Americans.

Ralph Nader: Okay, now keep, keep going John, keep adding to the list. Yeah keep adding what else would you use, because you got a lot of money left over. Go ahead.

John Nichols: If I win that fight quick, right?

Ralph Nader: Yeah, okay.

John Nichols: And I really get that popularized and make that a left/right model. Then fight number two is: fight number two is for – and it’s just going to put me at odds with Bill here – it’s for every structural model that allows for multiparty democracy. And the reason I want multiparty democracy is – and obviously I think that relates to instant run-off voting or proportional representation or models of that sort is that – I want at the local state and national levels options for people to come into the process that they don’t feel they’re wasting their vote. When I talk about multiparty democracy, I’m literally talking about having three or four parties on the ballot and having them have some model, where they can get places in every race. And to make that the core of that – and how I might when I said “multiple avenues” and might get us there – the core of that is eliminating gerrymandering. The vast majority of Americans cast their ballots in the vast majority of races for candidates who they know are going to win or lose before they cast that ballot. What was remarkable about last night was we got a surprise out of it, right? That’s incredibly rare in American politics. Rob Richie over at FairVote and others, they usually predict the vast majority of Congressional races before they begin and so …

Bill Curry: Poor outcome, but yes.

John Nichols: … I know…

Ralph Nader: Okay.

John Nichols: … and I’ve been a passionate supporter for years of, of getting money out of politics and all sorts of other things …

Ralph Nader: Okay.

John Nichols: … but I think the biggest barrier is gerrymandering the limits on multiparty democracy.

Ralph Nader: Okay, Bill how would you use these billions of dollars in terms of organizing communities and Congressional and Legislative districts for action?

Bill Curry: First of all, I just want to say that I actually agree with John on most of what he just said. If we have instant run-off voting across America I’d be for third parties …

John Nichols: We’d also be identifying you as the former Governor of Connecticut.

Bill Curry: Yes, we would be, but it’s not just for that one selfish reason. Yes, yes my objection to third party systems is the system’s own intolerance of them and that I can’t find a way around it, unless we were to do what you said, that I’d want to have the instant runoff ballots before I committed to the party. But in the answer to Ralph’s question, I would in fact thank the donor for his generosity and then give him back the money, because that’s not my model. And this isn’t really about money. And that’s been one of the nice lessons of this election. You cannot draw a statistical correlation anywhere, primary or general, between money spent and outcome. It’s been true for a long time. I’ve argued since at least 1996, when I analyzed the Clinton race on it. And it’s the great untold secret of our politics that the money isn’t as important. What we need – and secondly because that I really agree with what John said about our need for a new and independent nonprofit media. I believe strongly in that – But what I believe most – I just have to go back is the problem here is intellectual. I just want to give one example from the The (Nuclear) Freeze, and I’ll …

Ralph Nader: Yeah very quickly, very quickly because I want to challenge you on this. So very quickly because we’re running out of time.

Bill Curry: … in the nuclear freeze movement, it was the concreteness and the specificity and the fact that the movement had a deal breaker, “If you weren’t with us, we weren’t for you.” The left doesn’t have any more deal breakers, apparently. The concreteness and specificity and power, the idea was, “bilateral, verifiable freeze on the development, production, deployment of nuclear weapons.” And the country heard the specific idea and bought it. And secondly, ala Saul Alinsky, the movement wasn’t conveyed by any kind of technological media. It was a person-to- person, face-to-face, producing the kinds of chemical reactions of change that I believe only human connection can do. And so, that’s my model. And that’s sort of the vision I have. And whether it’s entirely true or not, I want to push more of it.

Ralph Nader: All right let me challenge you, Bill. Historically, there haven’t been many successful mass movements without full time organizers in the field. Think the Labor Movement, think the Civil Rights Movement. If we are going to change this country, the way our system is calibrated, we have to focus, have the attention on Congress and state legislatures. That’s the way the Constitutions have opened the paths. If we’re going to transform this country, we have to have organizers in the field. We have to have people mobilizing, volunteer inputs and full time staffs and full time offices. Why wouldn’t you want to use some of this $5 billion to put full time Congress watchdog groups, deploying citizen summons in town meetings to the Senators and Representatives in every Congressional district? Full time offices backed by hundreds of engaged volunteer citizens, invoking left/right consensus. Why wouldn’t you want to recognize that without field organizers, you can’t make democracy work? And that takes money.

Bill Curry: I do recognize it …

Ralph Nader: That takes money.

Bill Curry: I do recognize this, let me just say Ralph, number: one your own movement to Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, the rest of the Environmental Movement, the Peace Movement, they all had tens of thousands of organizers, who weren’t paid. One of the questions here is why we have given up on that idea. And why that’s disappeared. The story of the implosion of the left in the last forty years is every bit as important as the rise of the right. But it’s gotten a lot less attention, and I think that we should look at that. I also believe that money always comes with strings, even if they’re invisible. And I also believe it’s not top down. And I believe that this election is ultimately the greatest refutation. Think of the Democrats vaunted ground game, and all the fortune spent on it. You know what? A grassroots organizing campaign, it’s like wiring a house for electricity. You can put all the wiring and the outlets and the appliances all in, but if there’s no juice in the system, when you pull the switch the lights don’t go on. And “the juice” are the values and the convictions and the ideas that drive the movement. If we took $5 billion before we took a hard look at ourselves as to what it is we’re about to sell, we’d be making a mistake. And if we figure that out well enough, just like the Consumer Movement, just like The Freeze, just like the Women’s Movement, just like the Civil Rights Movement, we’ll win.

Ralph Nader: Well, you make an interesting point. John Nichols, let me ask you this in conclusion. What do you think should be done, given the fact that 2018 is going to help the Republicans take more control of the Senate, because I think three times more Democrats are up. It doesn’t look good for the Democrats to take back Congress anytime soon. What do you think should be done in terms of progressive politics at the grassroots, beyond exhortation? How do we organize people, whether they’re volunteers, whether they are helped by full time organizers? That to me is the essential question today, because I just finished writing a little paperback called, Breaking Through Power: It’s Easier Than We Think, and a lot of the examples echo Bill’s optimism here. But what would you do on the ground?

John Nichols: Go to the states. Look, you’re right about taking back the House and the Senate. There are real challenges there, and that’s just cycles of politics. Although, I think it may be a little easier than than we think, because I think there will be a reaction to President Trump. But if there is that reaction to President Trump, one of the best places for it to play out is in the states. You have a number of governors and a lot of state legislators, who are in positions of power because we have moved into a counter cyclical pattern in our politics: whatever president is in the White House, in the states you often have in off year elections a reaction to that, a push back against it. In Wisconsin when George W. Bush was in the White House, you had Democrats win the 2002 and 2006 elections in Wisconsin. When you had Barrack Obama in the White House, you had Republicans win the 2010, 2014 elections. I think there’s a lot of genuine political opportunity in the states in 2018. I would put a lot of energy there. And that has a payback on the federal level, because the governors and legislators elected in 2018 will have the ability to do redistricting in a manner that might undo a tremendous amount of the damage done as regards to competitive congressional districts. Just massive commitment to the states.

Ralph Nader: Okay, one quick question to John, and then one question to both of you. Your home state of Wisconsin, how in the world did Russ Feingold lose to Senator Johnson?

John Nichols: Sure. The answer to that is very, very simple. I kind of referenced it earlier. We are moving toward a parliamentary system in our elections, not in our governance, it’s different. We still have obviously separation of powers, three branches of government et cetera. But the fact of the matter is, if you look around the country and you see how our politics played out, it is simply that people don’t split their tickets anymore at the level that they once did. Russ Feingold, as recently as 2004 against a very viable wealthy candidate, spending a lot of money, got well over a hundred – some people say even to the range of 200,000 – votes from people that voted for George W. Bush for President. Now in 2004, Russ Feingold is running as a guy who would had opposed the Patriot Act, opposed the War in Iraq, oppose so many of Bush’s initiatives, but people are willing to split their tickets because they respected Feingold. Even some conservatives voted for him because they liked his civil liberties. We’ve really lost that. I can’t emphasize, Ralph and then Bill, how real that reality is. You show me a State where Trump wins by in large – not always – but by in large, I’ll show you a state where the Republican won the competitive Senate race and vice versa. We’re losing a lot of ground there.

Ralph Nader: Okay, last quick question. I want to sense your temperament here. Do you think after four straight Congressional loses in the House of Representatives that Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer should step down from the leadership and open up a contest for new leadership of the Democrats in the House?

Bill Curry: I’ll go first, because this is the rare issue in which I beat you to the punch. I wrote a piece on this. My last piece on this was a year ago. And the one before that was three years ago. Absolutely. And if they don’t, someone in the House caucus should rise up. That Chuck Schumer would be Wall Street’s biggest friend in the United States Senate and become the minority leader on a voice vote, and that this failed leadership in the House, right across the board remains in power, its failures. It’s just tells you how little respect they have.

Bill Curry: I’m talking about Senator Chuck Schumer in the Senate, and I’m talking about the House. And for Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and all the – I’ve called many times for them to resign or be ousted – and again I have nothing against any of them. They’re all fine. But they’ve done a terrible job of figuring out what the right policy is.

Ralph Nader: Okay.

Bill Curry: We had thirty districts uncontested this year. There’s so many things about them that have failed. If the Democrats don’t bring a new leadership now, it’s clear they’re not committed to reforming their own party or bringing it back.

Ralph Nader: Okay. John, what’s your view?

John Nichols: It’s my turn to agree with Bill very passionately.

Bill Curry: Oh, good.

John Nichols: This has nothing to do with personalities. It’s a much simpler equation than that. Parties that lose replace their leaders, right? I mean this is very, very common. Sometimes, you will give a leader a couple of tries. They let Tom Dewey try twice for President, and it just didn’t work. They let Adlai Stevenson as well. But the Democratic Party is in total crisis. Understand this. They just lost to Donald Trump, okay? You don’t have to really talk about it beyond that. They also lost all six Senate races to unbelievably ridiculous and awful candidates. And so at this most fundamental level, you just pause and you say, “Okay, we’re not very good at this. And let’s get good at this, because that’s the nature of the game.” The first thing you do is you bring in a new group of people, but you also listen to something Bernie Sanders has said. This is a very big deal. Bernie Sanders says that they’ve got to just open that Party up to young people. Everybody
says, “How are we going to get the young people engaged? How are we going to diversify our politics, open it up?” Well, Bernie Sanders was bringing tens of millions – well I should say – he was bringing millions adding up to a vote that was well over ten million. But, millions of young people entered the process. Some of these states who was getting over 80% of the votes from the people under the age of thirty. And as Sanders has said, you know it wasn’t like when he got done. The Party said, “We love your people. We want to bring them in? No, there was a fear – now Sanders doesn’t say this – I say it. But I think there was a fear of his base, because it didn’t just arrive and say, “We want to fit in.” It arrived saying, “We want a revolution.”

Ralph Nader: We’re out of time.

John Nichols: This is a constant struggle.

Ralph Nader: Yeah, we’re out of time. This has been a very invigorating conversation. Hopefully, we can continue it in the future. Thank you very much to John Nichols, regular contributor to The Nation magazine, The Capitol Times and to Bill Curry, a contributor to Salon, former councilor to President Clinton and now writes for The Daily Beast. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

John Nichols: I couldn’t think of a better thing to be doing on the day after yesterday.

Billy Curry: And I feel a little better.

(Chuckling)

Ralph Nader: I hope we set the stage for some analytic introspection here. That’s very good, I really appreciate your coming on, yeah, I hope we can do it again. Thanks a lot, John.

Billy Curry: All right guys.

Ralph Nader: Okay bye-bye now.

Billy Curry: Thank you, bye-bye.

John Nichols: Take good care.

David Feldman: Ralph, I echo everything they said. What about joining the Republican Party? It seems like that’s the only vigorous debate that’s going on. What if you’re a liberal, a progressive and you just go in and just join the Republican Party? Is that the same?

Ralph Nader: You need your own standup comedy act.

David Feldman: That’s our show, I want to thank our guests today Bill Curry from Salon and John Nichols from The Nation. A transcript of this episode will be posted on ralphnaderradiohour.com. For Ralph’s weekly blog, go to nader.org. Russell Mohkiber, we didn’t have time for him today but for more of him go to corporatecrimereporter.com. Remember to visit the country’s only law museum, the American Museum of Tort Law in Winsted, Connecticut. Go to tortmuseum.org. The producers of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt and Matthew Marran. Our executive producer is Alan Minsky. Our theme music “Stand Up! Rise Up!” was written and performed by Kemp Harris. Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Talk to you then, Ralph.

Ralph Nader: Thank you very much David and Jimmy. What we need to do now is start organizing our communities on Congress and state legislatures after this upheaval of November 8th, 2016, where once again the winner of the popular vote lost the election to the winner of the Electoral College.

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